Search This Blog

Subscribe to this blog

Follow by Email

Second Texas Nurse Tests Positive For Ebola

President Barack Obama, second from left, speaks to the media about Ebola during a meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2014.

DALLAS (AP) — The Ebola crisis in the U.S. took another alarming turn Wednesday with word that a second Dallas nurse caught the disease from a patient and flew across the Midwest aboard an airliner the day before she fell ill, even though government guidelines should have kept her off the plane.

Amid growing concern, President Barack Obama canceled a campaign trip to address the outbreak and vowed that his administration would respond in a "much more aggressive way" to Ebola cases in the United States.

Though it was not clear how the nurse contracted the virus, the case represented just the latest instance in which the disease that has ravaged one of the poorest corners of the earth — West Africa — also managed to find weak spots in one of the world's most advanced medical systems.

The second nurse was identified as 29-year-old Amber Joy Vinson. Medical records provided to The Associated Press by Thomas Eric Duncan's family showed she inserted catheters, drew blood and dealt with Duncan's body fluids.

Duncan, who was diagnosed with Ebola after coming to the U.S. from Liberia, died Oct. 8. Kent State University in Ohio, where three of Vinson's relatives work, confirmed she was the latest patient. Even though the nurse did not report having a fever until Tuesday, the day after she returned home, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said she should not have boarded a commercial flight.

The nurse also knew before heading home that another nurse, Nina Pham, had been diagnosed with Ebola, and she had a slightly elevated temperature — 99.5 degrees, according to government officials. While in Cleveland, she was contacted by health officials and told that her health would need to be more closely monitored for Ebola, the CDC said. It was unclear whether she was told not to fly.

From now on, CDC Director Tom Frieden said, no one else involved in Duncan's care will be allowed to travel "other than in a controlled environment." He cited guidelines that permit charter flights or travel by car but no public transportation.

On its website, the CDC says all people possibly exposed to Ebola should restrict their travels — including by avoiding commercial flights — for 21 days. Ebola patients are not considered contagious until they have symptoms. Frieden said it was unlikely that others on the plane were at risk because the nurse was not vomiting or bleeding.

Even so, the CDC is alerting the 132 passengers who were aboard Frontier Airlines Flight 1143 from Cleveland to Dallas-Fort Worth on Monday "because of the proximity in time between the evening flight and first report of illness the following morning." Officials are asking passengers to call the health agency so they can be monitored. The nurse flew from Dallas to Cleveland on Friday, Oct. 10.

Kent State said it was asking the workers related to Vinson to stay off campus for 21 days "out of an abundance of caution." Her Ebola diagnosis was confirmed Wednesday. The CDC's investigation suggests that health care workers were at highest risk from Sept. 28 to Sept. 30, the three days before Duncan was diagnosed. Both nurses who contracted Ebola worked on those days and had extensive contact with him when he had vomiting and diarrhea, Frieden said.

Medical records indicate that the workers wore protective equipment, including gowns, gloves and face shields during that time. The first mention in the records that they wore hazmat suits was on Sept. 30.

In his most urgent comments on the spread of the disease, Obama also warned that in an age of frequent travel, the disease could spread globally if the world doesn't respond to the "raging epidemic in West Africa."

The second nurse was transferred Wednesday to a special bio-containment unit at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, where other Ebola patients have been treated successfully. Pham will be monitored in Dallas to determine the best place for her care, Frieden said.

The CDC has acknowledged that the government was not aggressive enough in managing Ebola and containing the virus as it spread from an infected patient to a nurse at a Dallas hospital. The second case may help health officials determine where the infection-control breach is occurring and make practices safer for health workers everywhere.

For example, if both health workers were involved in drawing Duncan's blood, placing an intravenous line or suctioning mucus when Duncan was on a breathing machine, that would be recognized as a particularly high-risk activity. It might also reveal which body fluids pose the greatest risk.

At the Dallas apartment complex where the second nurse lives, emergency responders in hazardous-materials suits began decontamination work before dawn Wednesday. Police guarded the sidewalk and red tape was tied around a tree to keep people out. Notices handed out to neighbors advised of the diagnosis. Officials said she lives alone with no pets.

Ryan Fus, 24, who lives in the same building as the blocked-off apartment, said police knocked on his door before 6 a.m. to notify him and make sure he was all right. "It's a little shocking that it's right near me," he said.

Dallas city spokeswoman Sana Syed said a hazardous-materials crew cleaned common areas of the complex and that the state was sending a crew to clean the apartment. In all, public-health officials are monitoring more than 100 people who might have been exposed to Ebola through Duncan — at least 76 of them at the hospital.

Comments

BIAFRA

Translate

Popular Posts

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, right, accompanied by Gov. Gavin Newsom, said California will probably sue President Donald Trump over his emergency declaration to fund a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border Friday, Feb. 15, 2019, in Sacramento, Calif. Becerra says there is no emergency at the border and Trump doesn't have the authority to make the declaration. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

BY KATHLEEN RONAYNE

SACRAMENTO, CALIF. (AP) — California is likely to sue President Donald Trump over his emergency declaration to fund a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, the state attorney general said Friday.

Attorney General Xavier Becerra and Gov. Gavin Newsom, both Democrats, told reporters that there is no emergency at the border and that Trump doesn’t have the authority to make the declaration.

“No one in America is above the law, not even the president of the United States,” Becerra said. “The president does not have power to act frivolously.”

BY SEYE OLUMIDEABUJA (THE GUARDIAN)--Former Chief of Defence Staff, Lt. General Alani Akinrinade (rtd) in an interview with The Guardian on July 24, 2016, accused the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and President Muhammadu Buhari of deceiving Nigerians to win the 2015 election.

The retired service chief said the incumbent signed to a manifesto of restructuring before he secured the support of the Southwest leaders but rescinds immediately he got into office.

Four years down the line, restructuring is still a matter agitating the region few days ahead of the 2019 general election. Some leaders of the region, especially those holding political offices and are also seeking reelection on the platform of the ruling APC are skating around the subject basically because President Buhari and the national leader of the party, Bola Tinubu have refused to mention the matter the subject.

Senegalese President Macky Sall delivers a speech during his coalition's election campaign meeting at Lamine Gueye stadium in Kaolack, Senegal on 12 February 2019. Picture: AFP
DAKAR (AFP)--- Senegal goes to the polls Sunday in a presidential contest that incumbent Macky Sall, facing unusually few challengers in a country fond of vigorous political debate, is confident of winning in the first round.

His two biggest rivals -- popular Dakar ex-mayor Khalifa Sall and Karim Wade, the son of the previous president -- were disqualified after being convicted of corruption in trials questioned by rights groups.

"Victory in the first round is indisputable," a Macky Sall told a recent Dakar campaign rally.

Sall faces competition from four opposition rivals -- lesser-known perhaps, but campaigning hard against the president's plans for a second phase in a controversial infrastructure project called "Emerging Senegal."

A view shows the Bonny oil terminal in the Niger delta which is operated by Royal Dutch Shell in Port Harcourt Thomson Reuters

LONDON (REUTERS) - Nigeria has ordered foreign oil and gas companies to pay nearly $20 billion in taxes it says are owed to local states, industry and government sources said, in a move that could deter investment in Africa's largest economy.

In a letter sent to the companies earlier this year via a debt-collection arm of the government, Nigerian National Petroleum Corp (NNPC) cited what it called outstanding royalties and taxes for oil and gas production.

Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Eni, Total and Equinor were each asked to pay the central government between $2.5 billion and $5 billion, said the sources, who saw or were briefed on the letters.

Norway's Equinor, which produced around 45,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil in Nigeria in 2017, confirmed the request.

"Several operators have received similar claims in a case between the authoriti…

This illustration released on May 3, 2017 by the Obama Foundation shows plans for the proposed Obama Presidential Center with a museum, rear, in Jackson Park on Chicago's South Side. This view looks from the south with a public plaza that extends into the landscape. Odds still favor the eventual construction of Barack Obama's $500 million presidential museum and library in a park along Chicago's lakeshore. A judge hears arguments Thursday, Feb. 14, 2019, on a city motion to toss a parks-advocacy group’s lawsuit that argues the project violates laws barring development in lakeside parks. (Obama Foundation via AP, File)

BY MICHAEL TARM

CHICAGO (AP) — A federal judge gave the green light Tuesday to a parks-advocacy group’s lawsuit that aims to stop for good the delayed construction of former President Barack Obama’s $500 million presidential center in a Chicago park beside Lake Michigan.

Supporters of the project had hoped the court would grant a city motion to throw out the law…

In this Aug. 9, 2017 file photo, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert speaks during a briefing at the State Department in Washington. The State Department says Nauert, picked by President Donald Trump to be the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations but never officially nominated, has withdrawn her name from consideration on Saturday, Feb. 16, 2019. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)BY MATHEW LEE

WASHINGTON (AP) — Heather Nauert, picked by President Donald Trump to be the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations but never officially nominated, has withdrawn from consideration, the State Department said.

Nauert, a State Department spokeswoman, said in a department statement that “the past two months have been grueling for my family and therefore it is in the best interest of my family that I withdraw my name from consideration.”

Nauert’s impending nomination had been considered a tough sell in the Senate, where she would have faced tough questions about her relative lack of forei…

Honda's President and CEO Takahiro Hachigo speaks during a press conference in Tokyo Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2019. Honda Motor Co. plans to close its car factory in western England in 2021, the company said Tuesday, in a fresh blow to the British economy as it faces its March 29 exit from the European Union. (Yuya Shino/Kyodo News via AP)BY KAORI HITOMI

TOKYO (AP) — Japanese carmaker Honda plans to close its car factory in western England in 2021, a fresh blow to the British economy as it struggles with the uncertainty associated with leaving the European Union next month.

The company announced the decision, which will imperil 3,500 jobs and possibly many more, at a news conference in Tokyo.

Honda’s president and CEO, Takahiro Hachigo, said the decision was not related to Brexit, but was based on what made most sense for its global competitiveness in light of the need to accelerate its production of electric vehicles.

Residents line up to buy propane gas in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Monday, Feb. 18, 2019. Businesses and government offices slowly reopened across Haiti on Monday after more than a week of violent demonstrations over prices that have doubled for food, gas and other basic goods in recent weeks and allegations of government corruption. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery)BY EVENS SANON, DANICA COTO

PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI (AP) — Businesses and government offices slowly reopened across Haiti on Monday after more than a week of violent demonstrations by hundreds of thousands of protesters demanding the resignation of President Jovenel Moise over skyrocketing prices that have more than doubled for basic goods amid allegations of government corruption.

Public transportation resumed in the capital, Port-au-Prince, where people began lining up to buy food, water and gasoline as crews cleared streets of barricades thrown up during the protests.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Paul Manafort, the one-time chairman of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, could spend more than 19 years in prison on tax and bank fraud charges, prosecutors said Friday.

Court documents filed by special counsel Robert Mueller’s office reveal that Manafort faces possibly the lengthiest prison term in the Russia investigation. The 69-year-old Manafort is also at serious risk of spending the rest of his life in prison if a federal judge imposes a sentence within federal guidelines.

The potential sentence stems from Manafort’s conviction last year on eight felony counts related to an elaborate scheme to conceal from tax authorities the millions of dollars he earned overseas from Ukrainian political consulting. It is one of two criminal cases pending against Manafort in w…